FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- A federal judge has ordered the city of Fort Collins to stop enforcing a policy that bans women from showing their breasts in public.

It started with one woman asking, "If men can go topless, why can't women?"

"It's sexist because it specifically discriminates against female breasts," Brittiany Hoagland said in 2015.

Hoagland, Samantha Six and a group called Free the Nipple -- Fort Collins made headlines across the country when they protested on the corner of College Avenue and Mulberry Street with nothing but "opaque dressings" covering their nipples.

The Fort Collins City Council asked for public input but ended up voting to keep the topless ban for women in place.

The judge cited a researcher as stating that sexual objectification of the female breast leads to negative cognitive, behavioral, and emotional outcomes and contributes to higher rates of sexual assault and violence.

The judge also disagreed with the argument that seeing a woman's breasts could harm children.

"Nor has Fort Collins provided any meaningful evidence that the mere sight of a female breast endangers children. The female breast, after all, is one of the first things a child sees," Jackson wrote.

"It seems, then, that children do not need to be protected from the naked female breast itself but from the negative societal norms, expectations, and stereotypes associated with it."

Lane called the decision "Another example of the federal courts enforcing the Constitution in the face of the police and the City fighting against the Bill of Rights."